THESIS
OPPRESSION, INJUSTICE, AND AUTHORITY: CURRENT EVENTS IN THE
COMPOSITION CLASSROOM
Submitted by
Michelle Brown
Department of English
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the degree of Master of Arts
Colorado State University-Pueblo
Pueblo, Colorado
Summer 2015
Masters Committee:
Advisor: Dr. Donna Souder
Dr. Doug Eskew
Dr. Ted Taylor
1
ABSTRACT
In the spirit of postcolonialism, transnationalism, critical pedagogy and the banking
concept of education, Western tradition has changed dramatically in the past decade. The
American landscape, physically and metaphorically, has been altered by oppression and
injustice; however, new definitions of oppression and injustice are necessary as a new generation
of students exist within a more-tolerant society that must deal with issues of income inequality,
racial tension, and gender identification, to name only a few. How, then, can composition react to
events found in both broadcast and social media? Is there a pedagogy, a classroom dynamic, a
focus, that allows students to better understand the world around them through writing
specifically about the issues of prevalence in the media? What does research contribute to the
answer? I argue that students benefit from the introduction of current events into their
composition studies as a source of topic which each student can find interest based on their right
and responsibility to civic discourse. There are issues with introducing current events as the
topic, theme, or focus of a classroom, namely their lack of predictability, the overwhelming
sensitivity of many topics, and the difficulty of a traditional first year of university study that
questions many beliefs traditional students have grown to understand through the voices of
reason they recognize as correct or right. Through a close examination of my own students, I
identify the difficulties to also include a lack of classroom conversation among students about
individual topics. In conclusion, I recognize current events in the classroom as an imperfect
pedagogical approach, but the benefits for engagement through writing are worthy of continued
research.
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INTRODUCTION
One aspect of composition and rhetoric that has always appealed to me is the flexibility
of writing as a tool to be used in every discipline, every situation, inside and outside of the
classroom. I observe a widely accepted goal of any college curriculum to prepare students for
immersion into the world as not only capable employees, but as citizens cognizant of their
responsibility for the constant evolution of society and culture. As important as it is to provide
students with writing as a skill to be navigated and utilized to contribute to their earning potential
as employees, I believe it is equally important to introduce writing as a skill for discovery,
exploration, and analysis of society and culture as either fails and/or succeeds. The goals of
either are different, but writing can be manipulated to service both.
One of my goals as an educator is to utilize the composition classroom for more than
writing. I fully acknowledge that I have a responsibility to my university, my department, and
my students to provide those who enter into my classroom with the skills necessary to
successfully write throughout their college careers, and hopefully throughout their lives. I have a
responsibility to provide students with analytical skills that reject fallacies, recognize effective
resources, craft arguments that welcome and respect opposition, and anticipate potential
audiences for their work. The flexibility of composition allows me to focus on these
unquestionably important functions of writing while introducing arguments and observations
about current, relevant global issues.
Technology has allowed for a remarkable amount of information to be available for
consumption by anyone with an internet connection. Newspapers no longer exist only in print,
news broadcasting is no longer found only on television, and radio programming can exist in the
form of podcasts downloaded to mobile devices. It has never been easier to educate ourselves
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about the world, through facts and opinions, than it is now. John Gardner and Betty Sullivan
claim that “college-educated citizens in the 21st century have to become independent and selfreliant seeks, gatherers, and interpreters of information,” due to the accessibility of information,
both reliable and faulty (4).1 For these reasons, I argue that composition studies could and
absolutely should utilize the study of current events as a source of topic for writing assignments.
I am most certainly not the first to introduce and incorporate current events in the
classroom, for which I am mostly grateful; without the observations of others within the field
who have both succeeded and failed, I would not have had the confidence to engage in
conversations, challenge students’ perceptions, welcome rhetorical confrontation, or provide
appropriate parameters for writing assignments intended to analyze and discuss current events.
Even the naysayers have provided necessary context to help me understand the possible
detriments, specifically conflicts and discomfort, both of which I experienced when I
experimented with current events in my English 102 course in the spring of 2015. From said
experiment, I can now reflect on strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.
The focus of my thesis will be to argue that students can benefit from exposure to current
events in the composition classroom. I would like to focus on three terms to function as themes
for students to focus on when they examine current events; through a closer observation of
oppression, injustice, and authority, students can observe current events in a meaningful way. I
intend to support this claim through a close examination of critical and feminist pedagogy as the
foundation for my role as an educator. It will then be necessary to situate definitions for
oppression, injustice, and authority in order to contextualize their place in composition. The
banking concept of education, the problem-posing method, postcolonial studies, and
1
Though the source is from 2004, the same is possibly even more relevant today as traditional students have been
raised with the awareness that they can find information with astounding immediacy via the internet.
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transnationalism will then function as theories which support the social and cultural implications
of my claim. I will conclude with a close examination of my own experiences which have been
the ultimate test of application and practicality within the classroom.
CRITICAL AND FEMINIST PEDAGOGY
In order to begin my inquiry into student writing, I would like to explore pedagogical
theories that best support the type of learning environment to foster a course which values
current events as subject for academic composition. I would like to refer primarily to critical
pedagogy through the lens of Ann George and her essay “Critical Pedagogy: Dreaming of
Democracy,” and secondarily to feminist pedagogy through the lens of Susan Jarratt and her
essay “Feminist Pedagogy,” both published in A Guide to Composition Pedagogies.
According to George, “critical pedagogy has also been labeled liberatory pedagogy,
empowering pedagogy, radical pedagogy, engaged pedagogy, or pedagogy of possibility,” each
representing the same goal, which is to empower students against oppression and injustice with
their own society and other societies they will have contact with as students and as human
beings.2 In line with critical theory, critical pedagogy aims to “empower students, to engage
them in cultural critique, to make a change” (92). Educators aim to “disrupt dominant ideology
and to revitalize democratic practice ... for the health of participatory democracy,” and encourage
students to “use democratic means to reach democratic ends” (97). Critical pedagogy is a
disruption to Western tradition by manipulating principles of civic discourse by which the
Western tradition is founded; to encourage democracy is to question the system that fosters
current democracy, both in the present as students and in the future as active members of society.
Hegemony is expounded and critiqued, which creates opportunity for vacillation in the way
2
Oppression and injustice are italicized here on purpose, which I will discuss further later.
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students comprehend ideological systems which directly construct their societies, cultures, and
lives.
There are three actors that must be considered upon the stage of critical pedagogy: the
university/college, the instructor, and the students. George refers to the observations of Kozol,
McLaren, Shor, and Freire, who showed equal distaste for the university/college/school for
several reasons: schools “ensure that students, particularly working-class students, are
thoroughly schooled in passive compliance,” that they “function as ‘sorting mechanisms’ to
maintain inequality,” which double as “warehouse[s] for surplus workers,” and that “community
colleges with their vocational curricula train students to follow orders and accept subordinate
roles in society” (94-95). Critical pedagogy must acknowledge truth in such statements as the
motivation for its goal to encourage vacillation in the classroom in response to larger ideologies
and systemic structures which education is both framed and functions. Rather than protect
students from such claims, critical pedagogy places a spotlight on such accusations and
encourages students to “envision alternatives, to inspire them to assume the responsibility for
collectively recreating society” (97). Ultimately, critical pedagogy is a process of re-branding
which each generation of students is held responsible.
Critical pedagogy begs to reconsider the role of the instructor within the classroom
dynamic; a decentered classroom provides the optimal environment for critical pedagogy to
succeed. Rather than a hierarchical approach, imagined as vertical with the instructor at the top
and students at the bottom, the instructor should instead consider a more horizontal or linear
approach, which places all members of the classroom at the same level. To remove the expertise
in the classroom from a single individual, and to instead place expertise as a goal for each
member of the classroom to achieve upon the course’s completion, is to decenter and alter the
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classroom landscape in a way that encourages success through critical pedagogy. According to
George, “the instructor is the means expert,” which suggests that the instructor plays the role of a
guide rather than expert in the classroom.3 “Educators must live their ideologies to be believed,”
which creates a differentiation between authority and authoritarianism which students are then
challenged to respond to both inside and outside of the classroom (105). The role of the educator
who intends to adapt a critical pedagogy is perhaps the most impractical and difficult transition
to embody within a classroom setting. To decenter the classroom is to remove authority, but the
conclusion of the course is punctuated by a final grade which is provided via the instructor. The
final grade is the ultimate exercise of authority within the classroom, and displacement of said
authority is almost impossible in a traditional classroom setting.
Students also play an important role in the success of critical pedagogy. When placed
upon the same liminal space as their instructors, students are held accountable for their success in
a unique way; their assignment of value for the class is a reflection of their personal contribution
to the classroom dynamic. If students put forth the necessary effort, critical pedagogy places
control and responsibility in their possession towards success; however, if students fail to do so,
the course will lose its meaning and risk not only a failing grade, but more importantly, the
inability for students to complete academic writing in a meaningful way that leads to successful
academic composition in future classes.
3
I would like to take the time here to expand on two specific issues I perceive in regards to the decentered
classroom. First, I acknowledge that students may misunderstand the displaced authority within a classroom as a
conflict to their tuition. Essentially, students pay to take classes to learn from experts and professionals within a
desired field. A decentered classroom may result in resentment from students if the instructor does not justify their
approach. Also, I recognize that students anticipate their work to be critiqued through the process of assessment. If
the instructor removes themselves as a figure of authority within the classroom dynamic, the question of grading
must be addressed. There have been significant strides toward experiential education and service-learning pedagogy
that assess grades based on a student’s individual and collaborative assessment of their involvement in a class.
Students pace and grade themselves, essentially. I have yet to fully explore or prove this system to be effective,
though I look forward to opportunities for future research.
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A single pedagogy is, for me, incapable of fulfilling my expectations and aspirations of
growth as an educator. As much as I identify with critical pedagogy, I also acknowledge feminist
pedagogy as an influence for my intentions toward the environment I would hope to foster within
my classroom. I will need to depend on the two as a pedagogical binary rather than individual
pedagogies independent of one another.
Feminist pedagogy is a result of the evolution of feminism in Western society.4 Susan
Jarratt chronicles the history of feminism and its founding purpose from its inception as the
eradication of oppression and injustice. Originally founded from the catalyst of oppression
against women in a male-dominated society, members reached out to other groups within society
to share experiences, frustrations, fears, and hopes toward a better society of tolerance and
acceptance (113).5 Likewise, feminist pedagogy aims to promote similar conversation in the
classroom.
Though I do not interpret gender to be the ultimate division between people, there are
interesting observations worth notice in the study of gender differences in writing. According to
Jarratt, “several important researchers work in, around, and against a binary division of gender
and styles of writing into male / masculine / argumentative / rational / linear / academic over
against female / feminine / personal / emotional / digressive” (122). These observations became a
set of preconceived expectations of writing produced by men and women, hence feminist
4
The entirety of my thesis will refer specifically to Western society. I am limited to my experiences; if I am to speak
from a standpoint of expertise in any way, I must relate to the society I am most familiar, and the society from which
the vast majority of my students have been raised and submerged throughout their lives up until the moment they
enter into my classroom.
5
I use the term members specifically, as feminism aims to include individuals into a group that exists to negotiate
the treatment of anyone in a society that feels they have been oppressed or discriminated against. It is through
membership within the feminist movement that the cause gains numbers, the masses begin to assemble, and change
can be made.
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pedagogy had to combat not only gender stereotypes, but the adjacent oppression held against
women as less capable of academic composition.
Contrary to my initial reaction to feminist pedagogy, the goal is not to convert students to
feminists, but rather to invite the kind of knowledge through conversation that feminism
originally depended upon to create a platform of individual experiences tied together by common
denominators of oppression and injustice in a patriarchal society.6 Inspired by decades of
activism against gender and racial oppression “feminist writing teachers bring historical and
political knowledge of the feminist movement, sexism, and patriarchal structures, along with
tools of gender analysis, into the classroom” (118). Feminist pedagogy aims for many of the
same classroom practices as critical, including a decentered classroom with students acting as
“sources of knowledge” (115).
OPPRESSION, INJUSTICE, AND AUTHORITY
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, oppression is “prolonged cruel or unjust
treatment or exercise of authority, control, or power; tyranny; exploitation.” From this definition,
I can now situate oppression as a verb that requires an actor in command of authority, the
oppressor, which functions within a hierarchical structure above those which are the oppressed.
Power structure is of great importance for this conversation, and the source of power and
authority that places oppressors over the oppressed will be of great interest to students who are
asked to consider oppression they have witnessed or experienced in their own lives.
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The definition of feminism in 2015 can create cause for concern among students in the classroom. Feminism has
recently become a buzzword often associated with a group of high level celebrity men and women who have
popularized the term, determined to create a culture of support for equality between genders. Though income
equality is of the highest important to many, emotional equality, double-standards, and other gender stereotypes
have been questioned in hopes to erect a new culture of tolerance and acceptance that treats human beings as human
beings in the most neutral way possible. Also, feminism is seen in more subtle ways in larger society. An example
could be Title IX in universities which require equal treatment for any student involved in an educational program,
regardless of gender. Also, equal opportunity and a greater appreciation for diversity in the workplace aims to recruit
more women not only in companies, but within higher management roles as well.
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The definition provided for injustice reads “the opposite of justice; unjust action; wrong;
want of equity; unfairness.” Accordingly, as the antonym of injustice, the definition of justice is
far more descriptive. Several possible definitions, all from the OED, include “maintenance of
what is just or right by the exercise of authority or power; assignment of deserved reward or
punishment,” “punishment of an offender, retribution deemed appropriate for a crime,” and
“judicial authority or responsibility; jurisdiction.” Similar to oppression, injustice is closely
involved with authority and dependent upon the ethical responsibility of those who possess
authority.
There are four definitions for authority, each of which I find interesting and necessary to
fully comprehend the ways the term is conceived by the English language. The first definition
read “an authoritative piece of writing,” which is interesting in that written discourse is the first
mentioned definition of authority. If writing, as a noun, is considered first as a definition for
authority, then students can consider the act of writing as authoritative. The second definition is
two-part, and claims “Power to enforce obedience or compliance, or a party possessing it,”
followed by “Power or right to give orders, make decisions, or enforce obedience; moral, legal,
or political supremacy.” In this case, power is granted by “moral, legal, or political supremacy”
to enforce compliance of rules created to protect a greater system. Who possesses the power to
give unto someone else? How is “moral, legal, or political supremacy” achieved? What makes
constituents obedient to authority?
Perhaps there are answers to these questions with greater consideration of a definition for
authority. “Power derived from or conferred by another; the right to act in a specified way,
delegated from one person or organization to another; official permission, authorization” is given
as a third possible definition, one which considers how power is traded, transacted, manipulated,
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and shifted between members who hold it to those that do not, or perhaps how it is withheld from
those that never will. Oppression is a product of authority in relationship to power. Along the
ideas of oppression, the final definition to consider for authority is “As a mass or count noun: a
person or (esp.) body having political or administrative power or control in a particular sphere;
the body or bodies held responsible for enforcing law and order, providing public services, etc.,
in a country or region.” I find the final definition to be the most important in relationship to how
authority is placed in the possession of some rather than others. When students recognize that
they themselves represent the masses, and that the masses must be accountable for their society,
they have an opportunity to view authority as something that may not actually be so far from
their reach.
PAOLO FREIRE, CONSCIENTIZAÇÃO, AND LIBERATION
With working definitions for oppression, injustice, and authority, I would like to consider
the work of Paolo Freire, a social theorist from Brazil; his interpretation of education is
meaningful as both a theory and as a means for practical application in the composition
classroom. Freire experienced poverty and hunger throughout his childhood in Brazil as a result
of an oppressive government. He dedicated his work to identifying the oppressive forces in both
government and education as the largest power structures within a society. In his seminal text
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, there is a chapter titled “The Banking Concept of Education,” which
contributes to the founding theories for critical pedagogy.
According to Freire, systemic education is oppressive, but students are not free from
responsibility for the culture of unquestioned information acceptance which allows for
oppression to breed. He accused students of mimicking ‘receptacles’ that failed to question the
truth and the complexity behind knowledge passed to them from the expert or authority figure
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who controlled their educational institutions. According to Freire, “this is the ‘banking’ concept
of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as
receiving, filing, and storing the deposits,” which indicates students are evaluated on their ability
to receive and duplicate information rather than their ability to question and make inquiries of
their own (1).7
The oppressors revel in the simplicity of ideology and authority, which combined create
a culture of acceptance that goes unquestioned by the masses, hence “the more completely they
accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is
and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them” (2). Essentially, it is knowledge or
information that is presented as simple that must be questioned. To combat “transferals of
information,” Freire instead encourages “acts of cognition” through his answer to the banking
concept: the problem-posing method, defined as,
“Whereas banking education anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing
education involves a constant unveiling of reality. The former attempts to maintain the
submersion of consciousness; the latter strives for the emergence of consciousness and
critical intervention in reality” (6-8).
In his counter-method, students are introduced to equal parts freedom and responsibility for their
own education. They are encouraged to no longer exist as “docile listeners,” and instead take
control of the dialogue in which every member of the classroom, instructor included, recognizes
the potential to gain and learn (7). Freire claimed that “only through communication can human
7
Here I would like to consider that teachers were once students. They receive affirmation of their ability to teach
others through their ability to successfully complete the same requirements for perceived proficiency. Therefore, the
teacher is the product of cyclical institutionalization, and is responsible for the production of more teachers that will
encourage the same educational system for future generations.
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life hold meaning,” which for his purposes encouraged students to understand that their ideas and
opinions mattered and should be openly expressed (5).
The problem-posing method is complimented by the problem-posing educator. Freire
believed that educators have a responsibility to their students to break the cycle of expertprovides-knowledge-to-student by accepting the role of peer rather than the role of expert. He
encourages a partnership between teachers and students which requires the educator, the
classroom authority, to share the responsibility of meaning-making with all other members of the
classroom community and the discourse they share. The relationship was specified through
solidarity, which he claimed “required true communication,” and qualifies that “the teacher’s
thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking” (5). Students would
have to rise to meet their expectations as peer to the authority figure within the classroom, which
would demand more of students to provide scenarios and solutions for collaboration and
communication. The goal is to obliterate the dichotomies that the banking concept endorses, that
there is a distance between student as object and teacher as subject; rather, there are only humans
as subjects observing the world as an object, both placed on the same spectrum of authority,
working in joint responsibility toward mutual growth (6).8
There are two more terms that must be defined and contextualized toward my overall
argument: conscientização and liberation. Freire coined the term conscientização, which is
defined by his translator as “learning to perceive social, political and economic contradictions,
and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (3). I understand this to be a
conscious recognition of the reality of oppression in society, which could be considered in two
ways: first, students could identify with personal experiences in which they have been victimized
8
Here it is also important to note that human beings and the world cannot exist without one another, neither can
function in the abstract, and humans must recognize their role in the world, not outside of it.
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by oppression, and second, an opportunity for students that do not feel that they have been
victimized by oppression to consider why that is, and how the differences can be reconciled, not
only as individuals, but as members of the collective masses that create the constituency of their
society. If conscientização is cognitive, it is then complemented by the action of liberation,
essentially functioning as the antonym to oppression. “Authentic liberation – the process of
humanization – is not another deposit to be made in men. Liberation is a praxis: the action and
reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it” (6). Liberation and
conscientização are responsible for complicating knowledge acquisition, denouncing obedience
and marginalization, and returning authority to students as members of the masses under
constraint of their collective society.
Freire claimed “projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the
ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as a process of inquiry,” which I
interpret to mean that his definition of oppression is that which aims to manipulate people to
accept degradation rather than the situation that perpetuates it (2-3). Oppression, then, could also
mean that the self, the individual, is robbed of their own potential authority because the system
which should foster authority in individuals instead degrades their education to create
unconscious followers. Liberation could then be the awakening and awareness of the followers
to reclaim their authority through a more conscious education.
Given my own kairotic moment, practicality is perhaps the most disconnected component
of Freire’s theory. Not every teacher, especially a graduate student, has the ability to embody
John Keating, the fearless professor played by Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society; they
cannot wholly encourage the type of rebellion that undoes the socially perceived tradition of
education with assessment and successful completion of mandated standards. Freire inspired his
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audience to not only reject government-controlled education, but to demand a linear system that
placed authority and expertise evenly upon all members of a classroom. As an educator, it is
difficult to combat the same system Freire warned against when that exact system is the venue
for my current classroom, my first opportunity to practice and examine my own pedagogy.
As much as I understand, appreciate, and acknowledge the importance of Freire’s
perspective, I must also consider the reality of my own setting, and the most practical way to
communicate his ideas to my own students. My students must also be prepared to consider
themselves as “receptacles”; it may be the only way they can truly acknowledge their role in a
reversal of the effects Freire warned against in their own lives. In the spirit of effective
argumentation, I must consider that the opposite vantage point is just as valid. I must also be
careful not to assume they want to reverse the system. If my students do not identify with
experiences of oppression or injustice, what is the appropriate introduction? Does an appropriate
introduction exist? And if my students do relate to and understand oppression and injustice, how
does the academic conversation begin? How does a conversation inside the ivory tower reflect
the depth of what oppression and injustice mean to individuals, communities, nationalities, etc.?
Their identities as students, if I am truly interested in maintaining the integrity of Freire’s
primary argument, must be established without my insistence. If I convince them, through the
exercise of my authority, the education system is misguided, I function as a mechanism within
the cycle of expertise passed to students as receptacles.
How, then, does composition utilize Freire and the problem-posing method? My
suggestion would be incremental improvements. I cannot find it reasonable, practical, or entirely
effective to encourage the entire doctrine of Freire through the medium of critical pedagogy to
students, but I can introduce it. I can make it available to them. I can encourage discussion and
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promote conscientização of the social ills of their generation. I can assign projects that ask
students to learn through writing. I can provide an opportunity for students to study and analyze
their own society and culture, but first I have to consider another set of important theories to help
incorporate such a perspective into the composition classroom.
POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES, TRANSNATIONALISM, AND HYBRID PEOPLE
Critical pedagogy and the problem-posing method correspond well, but they are not alone
in the practical critique of oppression, injustice, and authority. The contribution of postcolonial
studies and transnationalism in rhetoric further enlightens how differences between peoples and
their corresponding cultures provide greater opportunities to both acknowledge and challenge
oppression and injustice as both educators and students. More importantly, I would like to
explore how either of these theories function through praxis in the composition classroom.
Postcolonial studies exist in the wake of colonialism and imperialism. The vast expansion
of territory and people placed through hegemonic practices of authority and oppression has
resulted in consequences which must be identified and analyzed. As members of postcolonial
America, educators and students have a responsibility to respond to the aforementioned
consequences as a practice of civic discourse.9 Composition studies provide a venue and a
medium for such ideas to be considered, through my observations, in two ways: 1) through
contemplation of the consequences of history, and 2) through careful examination of current
society, culture, and people/events.
As much as movement was a characteristic of colonialism, it exists today as a regular
component of daily life. People, things, and ideas move constantly across borders that separate
9
Here I would like to acknowledge the presence of international students in the composition classroom. They do
indeed exist, but by vast majority, my traditional first year students have been raised in Western tradition as Englishspeaking U.S. citizens. This does not discredit those that do not fulfill the provided student characteristics, but for
the sake of my claim, I will generalize to create a platform from which to describe my students.
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locations, cultures, genders, religions, and languages; Gloria Anzaldúa defined borderlands as
the spaces where these components of society exist in limbo, as the spaces between, which are
almost always accompanied by oppression and injustice due to their often marginalized
differences from the societal norms of larger society. Anzaldúa made the observation “the
dominant culture has the frame of reference,” meaning that colonialism created the frame of
reference against which all borderlands are compared (“Toward” 40). It is the responsibility of
postcolonial studies to create a new “frame of reference” against which borderlands have a
greater potential for acceptance and, eventually, authority of their own.
In “Terms of Engagement: Postcolonialism, Transnationalism, and Composition
Studies,” Deepika Bahri asks for postcolonial studies to be judged on its productivity as a verb
rather than a definable noun (74-76). She noticed that postcolonialism is often misconceived as a
synonym for “other” or “otherness,” which cultivates an environment where “the naming of the
margin in euphemistic terms is a way of reducing discomfort and diverting attention away from
precisely those problems of marginality, otherness, and of historical particulars that should be
addressed” (77). If placed against Anzaldúa’s borderlands, the treatment of postcolonial studies
of that as only “others” would mean that the entire discipline of study would focus only on
marginalized groups rather than society as a whole. Bahri goes on to explain “the lumping of all
the others into one contourless, indefinable category privileges their differences from the
mainstream while denying their sameness with it at any level or their differences from each other
in crucial ways” (79-80). Anzaldúa’s theory concurred with Bahri’s interpretation and noted that
life in the borderlands depended on the extent to which individuals were submerged in one
culture to feel inferior in another (Borderlands 43).
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I interpret transnationalism to be such an important term because it does not belong to
rhetoric alone; disciplines across the academic landscape study, define, identify, and create
through a transnational lens.10 Transnationalism is a binary between an increase in
interconnectivity among people and a decrease in the social and economic importance of borders
among nation states (Vertovec, 574-576).
To further situate a definition of transnationalism, I would like to first refer to Wendy
Hesford and Eileen Schell via their essay “Introduction: Configurations of Transnationality:
Locating Feminist Rhetorics,” where they explain that a transnational rhetoric perspective
“strives to address how rhetorical concepts are shaped by culture, social, and economic
interconnectivities and interrelations and cross-border and cross-cultural mobilizations of power,
language, resources, and people,” and that it “attempts to offer a more complex and sophisticated
theory of culture, cultural interconnectivity, and language, addressing how cultures transact and
interact with one another in a variety of mediums – face-to-face, digitally, textually – and
through international policymaking and transnational organizing” (465). Though many concepts
of transnationalism sound similar to those of postcolonial studies, transnationalism is concerned
with the present treatment of differences between individuals and their interconnectivity, and
how said differences are reflected through both oppression and liberation, and the evolution of
the former to the latter.
Postcolonial studies are often cross-referenced with composition due to several
components that reflect similar ideas and similar anticipative outcomes. Bahri notes that
10
Though I do not necessarily identify Writing Across the Curriculum as an influence on my personal pedagogy, I
acknowledge that students benefit from a writing course that translates to the fields they focus their studies upon.
For this reason, I think it is important to consider how the term transnationalism is useful outside of composition
alone.
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“Composition studies has found commonalities between its concern and those raised in
postcolonial studies. The former’s interest in rhetoric, discourse, and power; in the
recovery of hitherto silenced voices; in the liberatory possibilities of advanced
technologies; and in the relation of text to the social finds echoes, and often counterparts,
in the debates dominant in the latter” (70).
Bahri recognizes the potential that postcolonial studies has to liberate the oppressed through the
medium of composition. Postcolonial studies and transnationalism work together to identify the
oppression and injustice that Freire observed in individuals and groups that are “othered” based
on their identities within various borderlands.
There is a need to redefine the kind of people that exist in modernity, post-colonialism,
post-imperialism, with respect to years of interconnectivity in the New World and Western
civilization.11 Bahri refers to Jacqueline Jones Royster and her definition of hybrid people as
“people who either have the capacity by right of history and development, or who might have
created the capacity by right or development, to move with dexterity across cultural boundaries,
to make themselves comfortable, and to make sense amid the chaos of difference” (71).12
Anzaldúa also elaborated on the concept of “otherness” when she explained to Andrea Lunsford
that “there is no such thing as an other. The other is in you, the other is in me,” which dares to
detach from the assumption that individuals are incapable of gaining perspectives from others,
internalizing their understandings, and identifying as somehow ‘other’ themselves (“Toward”
40). Transnationalism does something truly exciting: it encourages an identification of
11
Reference to the New World and Western Civilization is specific rhetorical choice. I will further develop this
particular reference later.
12
Here I would like to acknowledge the theory of the subaltern as a theory that focused on anti-Western society
19
differences while simultaneously recognizing the necessity of differences in order to encourage
acceptance and tolerance, and ultimately a form of self-evolution.
To use postcolonial studies and transnationalism in a composition classroom is to
welcome conversations about the development of Western society; students must first understand
the complexity of their own society through history and politics before they can cross-reference
with other societies in meaningful ways. The evolution of Western society can create identity
within students born and raised into the American tradition, but there are instances of oppression
and injustice, namely through violence, that must be carefully considered against current society.
Postcolonial studies afford students the opportunity to analyze their ancestry, and
transnationalism allows for close examination of current trends congruent with postcolonialism
that affect not only American society, but society’s relationship to other societies around the
world.
PRACTICAL UNCERTAINTY
The theorists and pedagogical minds of the discipline that I have mentioned held certain
skepticism about their ideas that must be observed with equal interest. Paolo Freire criticized the
unconscious, unexamined mistakes of an educator who followed the exact curriculum and
standards of the education system, whose intentions were good, by claiming “unfortunately,
those who espouse the cause of liberation are themselves surrounded and influenced by the
climate which generates the banking concept, and often do not perceive the true significance of
its dehumanizing powers” (6). Some educators do not know that they are fostering an
environment for oppression and injustice to re-cycle. They are guilty of the same cognitive
dissonance as their students without even realizing it.
20
Gloria Anzaldúa, in her interview with Andrea Lunsford, confessed that “one of the
things I like best about teaching composition is that sometimes I can make a place, as a teacher,
for students to do dangerous and experimental kinds of writing. But then they have to go and
pass the tests and pass the history essays and do the inside-the-lines kind of writing” (49). As
liberating as a critical/feminist approach to composition studies can feel to either educator or
student, the rest of the educational system remains the same.13 Ira Shor furthered this
examination when he claimed “it’s a tricky business to organize an untraditional class in a
traditional school” (George 97). Critical and feminist pedagogy face the challenge to justify
seemingly unconventional methods against a system that favors tradition; however, according to
postcolonial studies and transnationalism, tradition is far from what the landscape of society and
culture actually immolate.
I recognize that it is imperative to consider the practicality of implementing critical
and/or feminist pedagogy into the writing classroom, which is often met with the unrealistic
practice of a decentered classroom through the complication of authority within the classroom as
it has been utilized in our current system of education versus what critical and feminist pedagogy
attempt to radically alter. Critical and feminist pedagogies do not endorse a spectrum; there is no
degree or variation of either pedagogy that the original theorists would approve of. In fact, they
would argue that the critical and feminist pedagogue must completely adhere to the separation of
authority from the position of the educator in order to succeed.
13
Here is perhaps the best opportunity to address the purpose of composition within a larger academic setting. In the
limited experience I have as both a student and an instructor, composition has been treated as a service course. The
required general education credits received from successful completion of a two-part composition program are
designed to prepare students for the expectations of college-level writing in any discipline. If a student successfully
completes their composition credits, they in turn have proven their ability to compose appropriate, academic
documents. If composition deters from the purpose of creating academic writers, it undoes its purpose within general
education requirements.
21
Here is where I recognize my inability to do so.14 My professional experience as an
educator in the university setting took place as a graduate teaching assistant. I needed the
structure to understand how a course is conceived, how a syllabus is executed to uphold both
university and department standards, and how assignments are created to achieve student
learning outcomes. Classroom management and fair grading practices were learned via observing
and communicating with my colleagues and participating in a professional development
workshop at the beginning of each semester. My role was that of both student and educator as I
learned from my superiors and taught my students, simultaneously, for two years. Of course I
was capable of making observations and decisions about how I wanted to teach post-graduation,
but my time spent as an adjunct faculty member at Colorado State University-Pueblo was
contingent upon my adherence to the solidarity of the First Year Composition program as it had
been designed for each instructor to function through unity of expectations and classroom
practices. To claim that I was capable of exercising critical or feminist pedagogy completely
would be incorrect. Their ideals have influenced and inspired me, but the radical execution of
their principles would have been impossible in the setting I have taught thus far.
CURRENT EVENTS IN THE CLASSROOM: AN ASSIGNMENT
I argue that current events have a useful place within the composition classroom because
young adults deserve the opportunity to participate in civic discourse in an academic setting. I
14
Yes, this admission is contradictory to my claims of adherence to critical and feminist pedagogy. I chose to
discuss critical and feminist pedagogies as theories to begin with, and either have heavily influenced my personal
pedagogy, but upon further examination post-defense, I recognize that I am incapable of referring to myself as a
critical or feminist pedagogue. The practicality of such a practice is inconceivable within a structured course that
depended entirely on student learning outcomes and department expectations as presented via Colorado State
University-Pueblo. My allowance to teach at the university depended entirely on my adherence to said expectations,
and to assume that I had embodied either pedagogy completely within the limitations of the system is both naïve and
untrue. However, I hold that there have been noticeable alterations in my treatment of students and subject since I
adopted the idea that each member of the classroom holds expertise worth acknowledging and sharing, and that I am
just as capable of learning from my students as my students are from me, which I believe is the foundation of either
pedagogy – classroom as community for the collaboration of ideas from unlike individuals.
22
contend that oppression, injustice and authority can function as themes for students to focus their
research when prompted to analyze current events for an assignment. The following will explain
an assignment implemented into my own course, and observations about the outcome.
I designed a project to explore the significance of current events as reported in respected
domestic and foreign sources. Students were expected to use sources such as The New York
Times along with several other online, foreign publications to focus on one current event for five
weeks.15 Students were to research, create an annotated bibliography, and compose a five to
seven page rhetorical argument that adhered to the theme of global relevance.16 They learned
about bias and fallacies as they recognized how arguments were either effective or detrimental to
the claims made by different journalists from around the world, and they were encouraged to
share their research in class to generate discussion about their findings throughout the writing
process. The First Year Composition Program at CSU-Pueblo believes that writing is a process;
15
Here I would like to take the opportunity to address technology within my thesis. I do not often refer to the
specific ways that technology contributes to the success of my students and their research needs. I never had to write
a paper or complete any project without the help of the internet while I was in college. Even in high school, I was
already introduced to the internet and the possibilities it provided for research. The extent of the internet has
expanded exponentially since my high school and undergraduate career. The typical, traditional freshmen students I
currently teach are between six to eight years younger than I am. Students are now able to not only access foreign
newspapers online, but they have an impressively accurate translation function through Google Chrome which
allows them access to materials across the world which would have once been unavailable. Traditional freshmen
students enrolled in first year classes across campus are not new to the use of internet. In fact, many have had the
internet on their phones throughout their entire high school careers. They are not quite as impressed at the
advancement of this technology because it has always existed for them. The one theme of technology that I take
time to address is the immediacy of the internet. Information that would have once taken weeks to arrive in a format
that could be accessed by students in Colorado is now available within minutes of its production, which makes the
term ‘current event’ more precise than ever. Their ability to identify their kairotic moment as young scholars
researching current, relevant sources allows each student to fortify their ethos.
16
Global relevance was the theme I chose to label the original assignment. Students engaged in classroom
discussions about what exactly global relevance means, and we agreed that their papers were to focus on events that
affected more than just the United States. The most popular topics included the massacre in Paris at the Charlie
Hebdo headquarters, the terrorist presence of Boko Haram in Nigeria and of ISIS in the Middle East, and the
economic turmoil surrounding the Greek election of Alexis Tsipras into office as the Prime Minister. An after
thought was the connection each of these incidents had, and continues to have, to oppression, injustice and
authority. So although global relevance was the theme we used in class, I would change the rhetoric surrounding the
assignment to include a conversation about these three terms.
23
therefore, a formal proposal, multiple drafts, and extensive peer review were completed prior to
final submission for both the annotated bibliography and the final paper.17
Through the utilization of foreign newspapers as text, my intention was for students to be
afforded the ability to identify foreign audiences, the expectations that foreign journalists had of
their audiences, and the overall perspectives that reflect the opinions of entire nations. My
students depended on Google Chrome to translate newspaper articles from around the world into
English; what I failed to recognize at the time was the contradictory elements of translated
primary documents. Students consumed information to better understand current events from
sources throughout the world. By providing students with the tools necessary to translate their
various sources into English, I may have encouraged them to do exactly what Anzaldúa warned
against, to erase the primary language and replace it with English, a dominant language. In order
to successfully complete the assignment, students then quoted and cited material for their sources
in their final documents in English, as though English was how it originally appeared in the
primary document. This was perhaps the largest failure of my assignment given my intention to
successfully incorporate concepts of transnational rhetoric.
CONVERSATIONS AMONG STUDENTS
One of the major pitfalls of my composition classroom has been the lack of discussion
among students. I had anticipated, with all the naïve hope a graduate student can have, that
students would arrive brimming with ideas they wanted to contribute to a classroom discussion
about the current events they had been assigned to research; this was not the case. The
aforementioned theories can only communicate so much alone; communication between peers
17
Also in adherence to the First Year Composition program at Colorado State University-Pueblo, I focused
extensively on a learning objective labeled Diversity and Social Responsibility, which claims “In both our reading
and writing assignments, you will be asked to consider and articulate the nature of a multicultural society and to
recognize the role of aesthetic awareness, language, and cultural and social perspectives, as well as human and
institutional systems of the past and present”
24
must exist. How can instructors encourage students to share ideas when they are unwilling? How
can students better understand the value of conversation within a course that focuses mainly on
writing?
I would first like to cite Kenneth Bruffee in his essay “Peer Tutoring and the
‘Conversation of Mankind’,” in which he claims that there is a chain reaction between
communication, internalized thought, and written discourse. Bruffee argues that “we learn to
think reflectively as a result of learning to talk, and the way we can think reflectively as adults
depend on the ways we have learned to talk as we grew up,” meaning that subconsciously,
conversation has always served the purpose of communicating information for ourselves and
others to contextualize and understand (90). Conversation takes place formally and informally,
inside and outside of the classroom, over the course of each person’s lifetime. Through
conversation, information is transmitted between individuals, and each individual’s ability to
analyze and synthesize information is enhanced by their ability to communicate their ideas and
questions to others. Conversations with others generates the kind of thinking that is then
practiced alone. Once a conversation takes place, the individuals who participated are then
capable of translating their interpretation of the conversation into internalized thought (88-90).
Throughout a nonspecific amount of time dedicated to a process where the student reconsiders
the conversation, students create their own ideas and interpretation, attempt to view the
conversation from the perspective of their communicative partner(s), and ultimately enhance
their understanding of the world based on new information acquired from the conversation. In an
academic setting, the next step is to write. The written component of the conversation of
mankind involves an alternative form of communication that asks the writer to consider previous
25
spoken conversations, a reflection of their internalized thought, and the production of a product
that shows change from the initial conversation to the written argument (92-93).
Bruffee’s intention was to identify the importance of conversation between peers; I argue
that his evaluation of conversation, internalized thought, and written product works in a
classroom setting where members of the course function as peers to one another, even if they
represent different disciplines, backgrounds, etc. He also observes that “the person who does
most of the ‘discussing’ in most discussion classes is usually the teacher” (94). In order to
eliminate said occurrence as much as possible, student must be willing to participate in a form of
rhetoric that inspires and respects their differences as valuable assets within a classroom
discussion.
According to Patricia Roberts-Miller in her essay “Fighting Without Hatred: Hannah
Arendt’s Agonistic Rhetoric,” individuals must avoid solipsism in exchange to accept an open
invitation to participate in discussion rather than taking their singular views as the ultimate truth
(587). Arendt’s theories date back to the Greek polis, which impressed her with the power of
language and conversation to promote and encourage action toward social change. RobertsMiller identifies that Arendt hoped to recreate the polis through encouragement to participate
with a public realm. “Arendt does not propose a public realm of neutral, rational being who
escape differences to live in the discourse of universals; she envisions one of different people
who argue with passion, vehemence, and integrity” (589). The classroom, then, should not be a
venue for polite conversation or silence; rather, it should encourage disagreement, opportunities
for students to prove each other wrong, and to prove themselves wrong, all for the sake of
learning.
26
The conversational element of agonistic rhetoric, a reflection of the ideas of Hannah
Arendt, mirrors and compliments the ideas of Kenneth Bruffee. Conversation encourages
individuals to recognize the value of collaboration. Should individuals recognize the importance
of conversations among individuals unlike themselves, they can begin to successfully anticipate
and accept postcolonial studies and transnationalism, value and trust the process of the
“Conversation of Mankind,” and participate in agonistic rhetoric to achieve greater knowledge
and ultimately stand against oppression and injustice as viewed through their evolving
knowledge. Arendt insisted that “good thinking requires that one hear the arguments of other
people,” meaning that “speech matters” (593).
To the contrary of the above mentioned idea, and I do find it exceedingly important to
discuss this rebuttal in detail, is summarized by the following observation: “The paradoxical
nature of agonism (that is must involve both individuality and commonality) makes it difficult to
maintain, as the temptation is great either to think one’s own thoughts without reference to
anyone else or to let others do one’s thinking” (294). Constant balance is required between one’s
own thoughts and the ideas which belong to others.18 Rather, information and knowledge should
be exchanged so that “one wishes to put forward an argument that makes clear what one’s stance
is and why one holds it, but with the intention of provoking critique and counterargument” (596).
In order to “provoke critique and counterargument,” any communicator must contextualize and
understand the ideas and ideologies of their opponent.
A return to the title of the essay is revealing. “Fighting Without Hatred” purposefully
uses the term ‘fight’, which indicates that there is a degree of expected combat within the theory
18
This is a critique used to identify issues of plagiarism between students. I do not wish to fully analyze the
implications of plagiarism as a result of students who freely share ideas and ideologies among each other for the
sake of agonistic rhetoric, though I do recognize the potential issue that is occasionally caused. For now, I will label
this as an area for further research.
27
of agonistic rhetoric. Arendt found constant consensus deplorable; her work reflected upon the
Holocaust and the societal assimilation of individuals unwilling to question the masses, but
rather become faceless members of the crowd. Arendt faulted the selfishness of humanity by
claiming “nothing, indeed, is more common, even among highly sophisticated people, than the
blind obstinacy that becomes manifest in lack of imagination and failure to judge” (597).
Agonistic rhetoric demands that those involved in the conversation must not be afraid to defend
their own ideas. The members of the Greek polis were able to affect social change through their
value of rhetoric and public speaking, not through their ability to settle for consensus. If students
are given the rhetorical tools to identify themselves in relationship to oppression and injustice,
they must be willing to defend themselves and their identities as much as they are expected to
consider the possibilities of others. Contradictory, perhaps, but identity is meaningless if an
individual is easily swayed by every piece of new information provided to them via
conversation. Intellectual beings must discern the truth from the conversations they take part in. 19
They must be willing to recognize their opposition and defend themselves and their ideologies.
The reality of silence in the classroom remained. I have considered two possible reasons
for why students choose to avoid agonistic rhetoric in return for the painfully awkward quiet. At
the beginning of each semester, students nod in agreement to the expectation that all
communication in a classroom should remain respectful. Somewhere along the way, students
began to identify disagreement as disrespect. Rather than risk the confrontation, the possibility
of disrespect, intended or not, has paralyzed students from entrance into an argument.
Alternatively, students have admitted that they choose not to engage in conversations when they
This is another function of internalized thought within the “Conversation of Mankind” that Bruffee does not
explicitly identify in his essay. The thought process which follows any conversation is not destined to only breed
agreement; rather, the dissonance caused by conversations can have an equally influential effect on participants
within the conversation.
19
28
feel they are not adequately prepared with enough information to argue their opinions. Ethos is
one of the most important concepts taught within the FYC program at CSU-Pueblo, and students
take care and pride in the creation and maintenance of their own ethos in the classroom. I believe
they would rather maintain silence than diminish their ethos.
I am still in search of an effective remedy for silence within a composition classroom.
Peer review, as I teach it, encourages students to become more aware of the other members in the
classroom. Each semester I challenge my students to learn the names of all of their classmates,
hopeful that the familiarity of names and faces will lead students to more comfortability referring
to the ideas of others, in agreement or disagreement. I have also considered disinterest, and
recognize that students may not be interested enough in any particular current event to discuss
the repercussions among their peers, regardless of my greatest attempts to encourage, even
threaten their grades with, their participation.
With rare exception for several international students, I am accustomed to sharing the
classroom with students who were born and raised in the philosophies of Western society. Their
cultural expectations have been cultivated since birth with influences such as the English
language (though it may not be their only language), the undeniable influence of Christianity in a
country founded on the principle of separation of church and state, recent increase in
conversations which question the existence of gender equality, and race has been recently
resurrected as the widest disparity next to socioeconomic status that plagues and divides the
United States. Within these complicated societal normalcies, students base their understanding of
their cultures. Students who are only versed in Western society may feel uncomfortable
establishing opinions of societies and cultures unlike their own, but I believe the entire purpose
29
of introducing current events into the composition classroom is to disrupt their comfortability, to
ask students to imagine the world outside of their understanding.
CONCLUSION
The hardest question to answer after the final outcome of my attempt to incorporate
current events into my composition classroom was why. Why continue to defend the necessity of
difficult conversations within the classroom? Why risk the awkwardness, the silence, or the
disinterest? Why try to simplify Freire, summarize Anzaldúa, defend Arendt, and justify
Bruffee? Why risk a syllabus dependent upon the unknown, the unplanned course of current
events?
I want students to not only take greater interest in the world outside of the university, I
want them to be prepared to participate in civic discourse as concerned members of society. I
want their generation to be more capable than those before to have difficult conversations about
the ills of society. I want them to be more than aware of oppression, injustice and authority; I
want them to actively work against the marginality of the “other,” to defend the defenseless, to
value equality. I want them to be capable of disagreement without resentment. I want them to
consider consensus a failure. I want them to be unafraid. I want the same things for them as I
want for myself, which perhaps explains my resilience against my first attempt, and my first
failure.
30
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